


A Drowning Man & A Dead Man

by kili_grabmyhand



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 05:04:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kili_grabmyhand/pseuds/kili_grabmyhand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You can't keep living like this, Eames.' he says, and Eames stares back blankly at the man, the one who calls himself Arthur, Arthur who was once a lover, twice a darling, but never a friend. The forger feels two hands lock around his face, two firm hands trying desperately, and failing, to bring him back to reality, but the pointman isn't nearly strong enough to carry out such a feat. 'It's. Not . Living.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Drowning Man & A Dead Man

* * *

 

Eames wonders what he is waiting for, wonders who it is that he sits and stays and sobs for.

He knows that he is waiting, days upon endless days waiting, but what he doesn't know is why, he can't recall.

His entire being heaves with the force of a dry, broken sob that wracks throughout his body, but he smothers that sound and all that escapes is a pathetic, whimpering noise that would be expected of an injured mutt and not of a grown man; salty tears stain the sheets, drip down into the indentation, the continual loop that he created.

 

 

\--

 

Arthur visits often.

'You tricked yourself into believing that it was love', Arthur says warily, as though the forger is insane, 'but it wasn't.'

Insanity isn't entirely unpleasant.

His love is here.

Arthur leaves again. 

 

 

\--

 

'Did you miss me? I know that you did.'

Arms snake around Eames' waist, 'I did.'

'You did?' his love whispers, incredulous.

'With all of my heart.' Eames chokes out.

Robert holds the forger closer, 'Did you love me?'

As Eames turns, sees that this is not his love, but carves his heart out regardless, 'With all that I am.'

This love will suffice for now.

 

 

\--

 

'You can't keep living like this, Eames.' he says, and Eames stares back blankly at the man, the one who calls himself Arthur, Arthur who was once a lover, twice a darling, but never a friend. The forger feels two hands lock around his face, two firm hands trying desperately, and failing, to bring him back to reality, but the pointman isn't nearly strong enough to carry out such a feat. 'It's. Not . Living.'

Eames gently pries Arthur's hands from his skin, because this isn't his skin to touch and Eames isn't his love to love, and Arthur sighs, rubs at his temples, and his shoulders are slumped defeatedly, as though this is all so exhausting, so tiring, so taxing, but he hasn't a clue as to what it is like of a night.

 

 

\--

 

'Stay with me.' Robert cries, hands holding Eames' tightly enough to drain the colour from them, desperately enough that it reminds the forger of a drowning man, a dying man, but this man is already dead and the forger forces himself to remember that as he lets go, as he hears Robert shout out after, 'I'm afraid when I'm without you.'

Eames gasps when he wakes, inhales as though he's a drowning man, a man struggling to hold his head above water, and he faintly wonders what a match they make. _I'm afraid, when I'm without you_ , the words ring throughout his head as he stumbles towards the bathroom, the bile in the back of his throat rising, burning, escaping, and he can only hear those words as he coughs up blood in the bathroom sink.

A drowning man and a dead man, such a pair they make.

 

 

\--

 

'I'll be good,' his love cries, as he makes terrible pained noise of pure agony. 'I promise.'

Eames was fooled, he believed he found his love, his darling, but that man was an illusion, a shadow, a shade, a fraction of his former love.

This is not the half to his whole, this is a lie, 'Just let me in. I'll be nice, I promise.'

Eames wakes with the shakes. He is a sweaty, unstable, incoherent mess as he staggers towards the bathroom.

When he glances up at his reflection in the mirror he is met with a face that is not his own. 'I'm not me, when I'm without you.'

 

 

\--

 

Arthur returns, he even offers Eames a job.

'Are you sure you're up to it?' he checks, eyes scrutinizing the withering forger.

The pointmant believes that the only way to get his Eames back is by showing him how easily the mind can be tricked.

'I'm as right as rain, Arthur.' the forger lies easily.

He thought that Arthur was trained better than that.

 

 

\--

 

'Terribly sorry, darling.' the forger splutters, but he's not sorry; he's smiling.

Arthur is aghast as he collapses to his knees by Eames' side, hands shaking as they flutter around the forger, frantically searching for the wound, the opportunity to save the selfish man, but Eames is smiling, still smiling peacefully, and Arthur can't contain himself, he yells because he is horrified, 'No, you're not, you asshole!' he spits, as he put pressure on the wound, 'You're such a bastard, Eames.'

'You can't stay mad at a dying man, darling.' Eames reasons, but Arthur is inclined to disagree.

Blood oozes from the wound, it trickles between Arthur's fingers. 'You shot yourself. Why would you do that?'

Eames starts to choke on the blood that congeals in his throat, barely managing to articulate his words, 'You know why.'

'You're an idiot.' the pointman cries, eyes burning. 'You're such a stupid, stupid idiot.'

Eames smiles weakly, 'I always liked you, Arthur." he says, before attempting to swallow down the blood rising in his throat, but he fails dismally, the result is undeniably worse, for he begins to cough harshly, abruptly, entire body heaving with the movements, and Arthur is distraught; he barely registers his movements, only realizing that he has turned the gun on himself when he feels the metal against his temple.

'What's stopping me from going with you?'

Eames lifts a hand, fumbles until he is holding Arthur's, 'I'm going home.'

'Take me with you.' Arthur pleads, even though he's never pleaded for a thing in his entire life.

'I can't.' the forger coughs harshly, bringing up dark blood, blood that stains his lips.

'Why not?" he asks, tears in his eyes, and the gun against his temple trembles.

'I'm looking for him.' Eames struggles, struggles to speak past the blood thickening in his throat.

Arthur shakes his head, cheeks wet with anger, 'You're so selfish.'

It tastes of blood, when the pointman presses his lips to the forger's.

 

 

\-- 

  

The forger wakes on the sand.

Waves crash loudly behind him, but break softly as they near him.

'Eames?' a voice calls, urgent and nearing.

When he finds his love, the forger breaks out into a sprint.

As their bodies collided there is no bitterness, only sweetness.

 

 

\--

Eames is gone.

Arthur has seen enough people die to know how ugly it can be.

The forger's breathing stuttered, he continued to choke on the blood that filled up his lungs, congealed in his throat, and the pointman knew that there was no point putting pressure on the wound but he couldn't move his hands away, couldn't get away, couldn't look away. He surmises that the forger planned on dying before the architect arrived, for he wouldn't have wanted Ariadne to have to witness such a sight, not with her untarnished innocence, her unstained hands, her pure heart and clean mind, whereas Arthur was already corrupted.

'You're an idiot.' the pointman chants, clinging to the forger's lifeless figure desperately as Ariadne arrives.

Ariadne falls to her knees, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks as her arms encircle Arthur from the side; she tries to pull him closer, tries to pull him away, but he won't budge, he refuses to let go. He who holds the forger so tightly that his knuckles turn white, so closely that blood seeps through and stains his clothes, 'You're so selfish.'

'He's lost.' she says.

Arthur won't hear it, won't accept it.

'He's gone.' she cries, and he wonders why?

'No, he's not. He's not. He's selfish.' Arthur disagrees. 'Selfish? Yes. But gone? No, he's not gone.'

Denial is sweeter, kinder, almost tolerable.

 

 

\--

 

'I waited for you. For endless days, I looked but I never found you.'

His love whispers into his neck, 'You've found me now.'

Eames pulls away, retracts a step or two, as he examines the figure before him.

'Draw it.' the forger demands, after retrieving a stick from the debris washed up on the shore.

His true love will know what to draw, the loop, the infinite chain that binds them.

Robert takes the stick, drags it across the sand and draws an infinite loop.

'Oh, darling,' the forger coos. 'I've finally found you.'

'We are unbounded.' Robert whispers, 'We are limitless…we are infinite.'

It tastes of salt when they kiss.

 

 

\--

 

Arthur tends to Eames.

The mind of the man is lost, but his body remains, and this is enough for Arthur, the man who has always prided himself on his ability to detach himself from his emotions, to not let them rule him, run him, but now he is merely a shade of his former self, a fraction, barely reminiscent of the Arthur he once was. He refuses to abandon the man he is tied to, he will not walk away from the man he should never have turned his back on to begin with.

Ariadne visits.

She bursts into a fit of tears every time she sets her sights upon the forger's lifeless body.

'Eames will return,' Arthur tells her.

The pointman believes this, and it goes past the point of sweet denial, it goes further than that, it delves into delusion, into lunacy, insanity, for he tends to the man as though he were indeed still living. And if he wakes – or, in Arthur's mind, when he wakes – he will not be who he once was, he will have left parts of himself scattered, left behind in limbo, and he will not be content with this world of simplicity, there is no creation here, not for Eames, it would not suffice for Mal.

 

 

\--

 

'Do you know what it is to be a lover?'

Ariadne didn't know from experience, she still doesn't, but she has witnessed how dangerous it can be.

Her hands shake as she places a small bouquet of flowers down on the green grass beside Robert Fischer's grave, because the guilt always gnawed at her, but the flowers aren't just for Robert; they are for a man lost long before he went to limbo, a man who could not bare the weight of reality and chose to die rather than to live in a perpetual state of agony.

That is what it is to be a lover, a half of a whole

 

 

 --

 

This is not what it is to be merely a lover,

This is what it is to be a half to a whole; limbs entangled, hearts racing, minds at ease.

'And what if you wake?' Robert asks earnestly,

'We will grow old together, darling.' he promises.

'But what if you wake?' he wonders, as Eames intertwines their hands.

Eames presses a kiss to Robert's temple, 'I will return.'

'And then what?'

'We will begin again.'

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing but the random, atrocious spelling errors.


End file.
